In many industrial processes, waste materials in the form of a sludge are collected at a constant rate. At some point the accumulated sludge must be periodically disposed of or refined, particularly if the sludge contains deleterious substances. An example of this sludge accumulation problem occurs in many industrial plants and municipal treatment plants. In such installations, the accumulation of sludge occurs at a relatively high rate, often contains hazardous waste products and therefore must be disposed of in specially constructed waste dumps. Often, the acceptable dump sites for such sludge are located at substantial distances from the accumulation sites. Therefore, if the sludge can be dried or if the major percentage of liquid in the sludge can be removed, the cost of transporting the residual dried sludge and the volume of sludge required to be disposed of in a dump site can be greatly reduced. The present invention provides an apparatus that helps to solve this problem.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that will remove the liquid from sludge materials and convert it to an essentially dry form that can either be reused or more easily transported to a dump site.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus for drying sludge materials comprised of a pair of plates that can be brought together to form a chamber for receiving the raw sludge material, a groove in the sidewall of one plate and source of air pressure connected to the groove so that air will flow from it inwardly and upwardly along the inside surfaces of the plate sidewalls, thereby sealing the chamber for the sludge and increasing the internal pressure that causes liquid to be removed from it.
Another object of the invention is to provide a method for removing moisture or liquid from sludge to dry it into a cake form and also to remove from it deleterious and hazardous waste products.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a separable plate-type apparatus for drying sludge wherein a pair of plate members form a drying chamber and are sealed by a peripheral groove connected to an air pressure source that also prevents the sludge from adhering to the plate sidewalls when the plates are separated.